NYT Hits Deficit Panic Button (Again)

Big news in the New York Times today (1/21/11): According to their new poll, Americans overwhelmingly support slashing military spending.

Wait–that’s not the news.

According to the story by Jackie Calmes and Dalia Sussman (headlined “Poll Finds Willingness to Cut Spending, Just Not Medicare or Social Security”), the real story is that people don’t like the idea of cutting these entitlement programs, but arereally worried about the budget deficit:

While Americans are near-unanimous in calling deficits a problem–a “very serious” problem, say 7 out of 10–a majority believes it should not be necessary for them to pay higher taxes to bridge the shortfall between what the government spends and what it takes in.

If you read far enough into today’s piece, the Times alludes to a different way of gauging public sentiment–one that finds people don’t feel very strongly about the deficit:

Asked what Congress should focus on, 43 percent of Americans say job creation; healthcare is a distant second, cited by 18 percent, followed by deficit reduction, war and illegal immigration.

And elsewhere in the poll (but not in the Times story) they ask people to name the most important problem facing the country. The deficit garnered 6 percent support.

In other words, it’s not at all clear that people overwhelmingly worry about the deficit. They do seem far more willing, though, to cut the military budget:

And asked to choose among cuts to Medicare, Social Security or the nation’s third-largest spending program–the military–a majority by a large margin said cut the Pentagon.

Which leaves one to wonder why the headline wasn’t “Poll Finds Broad Support for Military Cuts.”

The other main lesson of the Times poll is that Americans don’t support tax increases. The Times notes that the “antitax sentiment reflected in the poll is in line with Republicans’ mantra that spending, not taxes, is the problem for the federal budget.” So the public doesn’t want higher taxes, and doesn’t want spending cuts–which the Times writes up this way: “Americans’ sometimes contradictory impulses on spending and taxes suggest the political crosscurrents facing both parties.”

But the tax questions in the poll mostly ask whether respondents want to raise taxes on “people like you.” Obviously many people aren’t going to like that much. The Times posed one question that included a menu of tax options: increasing the gasoline tax, reducing the mortgage interest deduction, and so on. But they should have posed other options–raising taxes on the wealthy (i.e., people who mostly aren’t “like you”), or a Wall Street financial speculation tax.

The story the Times wants to tell is a familiar one: The public wants to have it both ways (no spending cuts and no tax increases either). But reality’s a little different.The public wants action on jobs much more than on the deficit. As far as the deficit is concerned, they’re overwhelmingly ready to cut military spending. And, as some other polls have found, they’re more than OK with raising taxes on the wealthy. As one Bloomberg survey found (12/10/10):

While they say they strongly support balancing the budget over the next 20 years, when offered a list of more than a dozen possible spending cuts or tax increases, majorities opposed every one of them except imposing a bigger burden on the rich.

Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

Social Security has a surplus so that money disbursed today is not money borrowed today, but is money from previous collection.

Since the U.S. is determined to be the world’s most dominant aggressor, perhaps money should be collected and saved today to pay for our unnecessary future wars of aggression. We wouldn’t want to burden the generation of 2025 with the economic costs of a war for which there is no lock box full of money sufficient to pay for it in the inevitable event we remain so gullible as to be lied into another pointless, but profitable, war.

FTA:
The public wants action on jobs much more than on the deficit. As far as the deficit is concerned, they’re overwhelmingly ready to cut military spending. And, as some other polls have found, they’re more than OK with raising taxes on the wealthy.

Of course polls can be worded in many ways.How about this………Since only a small percentage of people are in the military,and a like wise small number of people are super rich….is it ok if we stick it to them, and leave you alone?Hell yeah!
Next question.There is this thing ….this super complicated thing called the deficit.If we don’t get it under control everything will collapse.Don’t want to worry you .But do you think we should just steal it from the evil rich?Yeah…Good we are all done here.
Oh wait….Do you want a great job with free healthcare(paid for by those evil rich)starting right now?Great ,so glad we did this poll.It proved people want to tax the rich.Cut the military, and go back to work.FAIR might even print our results

Since wars and other military interventions are almost always fought for corporate/financial interests and their kids don’t do the fighting-and they don’t pay appropriate taxes, even though they are the ones who reap all the benefits—–Just let the top 2% and the corporations who will receive ANY benefit from the aggression pay for Defense. That way the other 98% of us can pay for the rest that might possibly benefit us.

These “IOU”s that are so worthless are the same treasury bonds that the whole world snatches up as the gold standard of investment. The right cannot have it both ways. Either the treasury securities are so valuable that they are a threat to us when other countries like China own them or they are worthless and cannot be used to fund government projects (as they routinely are, in the real world).

Well Tishado,actually treasury bonds that once were the gold standard- are no longer that.As the Chinese leader said last week(the dollar is a thing of the past)He was in effect talking about treasury bonds.Treasury bonds are in effect IOUs of future American production.As those IOUs build up of course the prospect of people(chinese)buying them will lesson.It is becoming painfully obvious that we will never pay them off.
Many in our government would have you believe China will continue to subsidize our existence to create an output for their goods.This is counter intuitive.China will search for, and find ways(as they are doing now with india)to disengage from our economy, and sell to those who can pay.Then ,or at any time they can call due those loans.Maybe not all at once.I mean we will still be the goose that has a few golden eggs.But the point is we will dance to their tune.And if world tensions ignite?????Chinese expansionism?They are building a nuclear sub fleet of immense size.Its only use is embargo.A wall against a modern blue fleet.They have a stealth fighter two years ahead of schedule.They are modernizing their intercontinental nuclear arsenal(ours is hurting big time and obama just signed away new development)
As far as creating government projects on those bonds……It is akin to me going out and buying 6 Rolls Royce’s today on my credit card.When I want to feel good about myself I like to hitch up my suspenders and say I have more money in the bank than the entire United States.You know what?…..It is true!

[…] insuring retirement (Social Security) and healthcare for the elderly (Medicare). These programs are very popular because they are very successful at doing what they are intended to do, which is reducing the […]